Adam Picard, left, with lawyer Lawrence Greenspon outside of the Ottawa Courthouse on Nov. 15, 2016, after murder charges against Picard were stayed because of court delays. Now, he faces a first-degree murder charge again, and has been denied bail awaiting his April 2018 trial.Errol McGihon / Postmedia

An accused killer once freed because of a lengthy delay in his proceedings has been denied bail.

Superior Court Justice Catherine Aitken denied Adam Picard’s bid to be released from custody while he awaits his April 2018 murder trial.

Picard is charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Fouad Nayel. Just days before Picard was supposed to stand trial in November 2016, another judge stayed the murder charge against him, citing unreasonable court delays.

In July 2016, months earlier, the Supreme Court ruled in R v. Jordan that even the most serious criminal cases must be concluded within 30 months of arrest to curb unreasonable institutional delay.

Last month, Ontario’s court of appeal found that the case against Picard, as a transitional case – meaning charges were laid well before the Jordan ruling – deserved more latitude. The delays in getting the case to trial would have been acceptable under previous criteria. The appeal court also ruled that the judge who stayed the murder charge miscalculated the length of system delay in Picard’s case.

Nayel, 28, a construction worker, had been missing for five months when his decomposed remains were discovered in the woods near Calabogie in 2012.

Nayel’s family have been vocal about the Jordan application in Picard’s case, which did, for a time, free the man accused of killing Nayel. Amine Nayel had called the legal system that freed Picard “broken.”

In court Monday, after Aitken said she was denying Picard’s release, Amine Nayel exclaimed “Yes.”

The judge said she will be providing written reasons for her decision. Those reasons, however, are shielded by a publication ban.